GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 754192
Since Last Run Dialog asks for security price even if not needed
Last modified: 2018-06-29 23:42:29 UTC
Using Release 2.6.7 in Windows 7 Create a scheduled transaction from a dividend record transaction containing (1) a reference line with no value to the security account involved to link the dividend to the security for the Advanced Portfolio Report, (2) a line to deposit the cash dividend into the brokerage account and (3) an income account line to balance the cash amount. Enable the transaction to Remind several days in advance so that it can be seen in the SLR dialog. When the Since Last Run dialog asks about the status of that transaction it requires a price for the security even though there is no purchase or sale involved. I believe that it does not create an entry into the security price data. If I try to test the cases where the same transaction is set to be created automatically with or without notification I get an error that "Scheduled Transactions with variables cannot be automatically created." when I click "OK" even though there is no variable in this transaction. I suspect that it may also behave oddly if any other transaction were set up to adjust the underlying cost basis of a security that did not change the number of shares in the account.
This problem has been fixed in our software repository. The fix will go into the next software release. Once that release is available, you may want to check for a software upgrade provided by your Linux distribution.
I just tested this as described in the first paragraph of the the original report using "This copy was built from git rev 2f2d1d9+ on 2015-12-18" nightly build in Windows 7. The Since Last Run dialog still requires a price although it is not used. I have not yet tested the "Create Automatically" part.
That's disappointing, it worked correctly for me on OSX. Does your stock account split contain anything at all in the credit formula or debit formula columns?
Windows is so often a completely different can of worms. The transaction may be the same one that I first saw this on, where, I just verified, the GnuCash Since Last Run Dialog asks for the security price in Windows release 2.6.6. This is a three line transaction for a cash dividend. One line for an exact number of dollars and cents delivered to the brokerage account, an income account offsetting that same number of dollars and cents, and the security account with no value in either the credit or debit column which used to be required to link the income to the security in the Advanced Portfolio Report. I think that formulas that do not involve an exchange of currencies should also work, but this example does not go that far.
This is important: The "marker" split must have *empty* credit and debit formulas. Not one that evaluates to 0, *empty*. Please make sure that's the case and test again.
Anticipating that you really want to be able to have 0, or even a formula that evaluates to 0, in the marker split, I've pushed a change that allows that. It should be in tomorrow's maint nightly.
(In reply to David Carlson from comment #4) > I think that formulas that do not involve an exchange of currencies should > also work, but this example does not go that far. Can you explain a bit more what you mean here? Are you proposing that GnuCash should recognize that a transaction which has four splits, two in commodity A which balance and two in commodity B which balance, doesn't require a price A<->B? If so, please explain a situation where that shouldn't be expressed as separate transactions.
I am not sure which split line is the "Marker". Running test of "This copy was built from git rev c2598f8+ on 2016-01-02" I do not get a request for a price from the SLR for the three line dividend transaction that has no entries in the amount boxes for the security line. When I commented about formulas I was mainly thinking of such things as mortgage payment formulas. We do not need to go further in this bug report.
The marker is the split which nothing in the credit/debit formulas whose purpose is only to insert the transaction into an account with no affect on that account's balance.
GnuCash bug tracking has moved to a new Bugzilla host. This bug has been copied to https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754192. Please update any external references or bookmarks.